Is Early Access a Scam??

Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Other Trolls gaming podcast. If you are new in joining us today, we are three brothers who get together and talk about gaming. We also may talk tech, TV, movies, and other nerdy geeky stuff too. Today we will be talking about early access, is it good or bad for gaming? But first, I'm nasty. Night and I am take it easy, John O, and I'm getting off the wives. Today we have Dan Dolph's audio what do you call that equalizer picture just bouncing around? Because he is not on video today, it. Would be considered audio stream, audiogram or whatever you were doing the other day audio Graham. Yeah, I don't think that. I don't think it's recording that as a video. It's just what we're seeing in Yeah. I think we just we just see him from It's like he's in the void. Yeah, I'm on. I'm beyond the black wall, dog, Doug. I am calling you from beyond the ether, Hi dog, Hi, oh man. So from last night from playing hockey, my thumb is killing me. I don't know what I did. I don't know if I jammed it. I don't remember jamming it. Did you fall your thumbs that's true. I did fall once skating with my thumbs. Well you are, you got a monkey. I didn't fall that hard though. I just skates on sharpen. My skates aren't completely shot right now, and I keep forgetting to sharpen them. And every time I step on the ice, I'm like, this is gonna be terrible. And every time I try to skate like fast and hard, I just don't feel like I'm going anywhere. It's like I'm just going through like slush. That's what it feels like, skating through through the ice. I was my body wasn't synchronized. Yesterday. I was just like I woke up from a nap because we had to go. Pam's dad invited us over for pizza, pizzafore hockey not good, never good, and I had like beers also beer and pizza before hockey awful, it's good. I was falling asleep, so I had to go. What is going on back here? She's crawling around. Pam is crawling behind the just to stay out of sight. She's lucky she wasn't naked or anything. Oh, she's trying to get by the players. She's addicted to games. You know, she is fourteen. Yes, oh yeah, man, what was I saying? Yeah? So I had pizza and fucking beer, so I felt like, shit, I'm falling asleep. I would go home. I have like two hours. I'm like I want to sleep or something, so I have a nap. I literally wake up at quarter after nine. I had to leave immediately to go get you and then go there. So I woke up basically and left the house before you left the house. No, I didn't. Oh, I woke up, left the house and went and played hockey. Stepped on the ice, didn't get a warm up because freaking keem Ke just slaps it down and says, oh, let's go, let's go, let's start. I'm like, dude, like, my body is not synchronized you. I just woke up, and then I fucking felt like three times in the first shift because I'm just like uh, and then he rips one off of my foot in the first shift, Like, dude, man, what is going on? Like I was so discombobulated. It was brutal. We won, though, and we played. There was some kid on the other team drafted to the NHL. Apparently this year, young fucking seventeen year old kids ass He was drafted by the Seattle Kraken in the second name as Nathan. But there was only one real Nathan on the ice, and that's this guy right here. Okay, although well your name is Nathaniel, I wouldn't say your name is Nathan. It's funny because yeah, I think we were ripping it around a little bit. We were passing it around. It's weird because I didn't I knew he was good. Like I was watching him, like, hey, this gid's pretty good. Obviously played hockey, but like he obviously wasn't trying right, so I couldn't really get a gauge of how good he was. And then they after the game they told me, oh, he was just drafted the NHL second round, Like what really? Yeah, But like you know when someone when you're watching someone and even though they're not trying, you can tell that they're really good skaters, you know what I mean. It was barely skating, yeah, but when he did I it didn't he it didn't blow my mind of how like nicely he skated. You know, he didn't seem like NHL material. Yeah, I'm like, okay, he maybe played junior or something like that, but he plays major junior plays for Sudbury Wolves, or we're like, oh what the fuck really? I was like, wow, okay, anyway, good game, sport game. It was like I think we won eight seven? Yes, eight seven? Yeah? Oh all right. So first before we get into game time, a word from our VR sponsors. Hello everyone, we are thrilled to announce an exciting new partnership with vr rock dot com. Get ready to an hants your VR experience with vr rocks protective lenses, available for both prescription and non prescription users. As a fellow VR enthusiasts, I opted for their blue light canceling lenses. 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Sure, let's let's hear what you have been playing. I suppose we'll start. So because I just kind of moved in and just unpacked all the consoles and stuff, I just like, you know, I'm gonna throw in whatever and play. But I had a half of mine had a bit of a craving to play Hogwarts Legacy, so I threw that in and I was just doing some side quests and stuff because I was like, there's still a lot in the game I haven't done, and so they continue or whatever. Yeah, yeah, the part what do you call them? I guess the relationship or friendship quests or whatever, like Poppy there, the animal lover. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I'm getting I think I'm getting close to finishing her quest. And we went and like it was a massive battle of like wizards battle. I don't she's the one looking for the she was, yeah, you don't you raid? Don't you raid like a goblin fortress or something. I think I finished that one. No, that's that was with what's her name? The other the animegus chick there. I don't remember her name from Africa, I think, yes, okay, yeah, but anyway, this was a cool one. She was the one that wants to protect all the animals and you try to and she you have to go and like deal with the the poachers with her. Oh okay, you remember the poaching ones. So we I was doing that quest and it was cool. It led to this, like we went to these ruins to find out like what was going on because there's this like mythical egg that you have to find that belongs to these creatures that's in like the I don't think it was the Forbidden Forest, but it was sweet and then like it ended up with this huge wizard battle, which I was not expecting, and it fucking took me like twenty minutes in that tent or something like undergrounded. No, no, it was in like a cod of some ruins. It was crazy. Anyway, it was cool, you know, I got I got a little annoyed because there was a bunch of puzzle segments to the quest, and I was like, tired of that o'clock at night. Why couldn't they just make a spell that just undoes all, like does all the puzzles with one puzzle solt puzzu flick of switch. So anyway, that was cool. And then I was also I loaded up some Tears of the Kingdom finally because I was like, I gotta play this too, and I got to see where I'm at. So I'm in the middle of the wind Temple still and I was like, where are the And I think I got close to that the top. It's hard to pick up again, wouldn't that be hard to Yeah, that'd be hard to pick up, Like I don't know where the funk I would be, although I finished it, so I mean like you could pick up and just do whatever you want. Yeah, I jumped in. I jumped into the I was kind of nearing the top and I have to find these wind turbines and turn them on with the little Uh that's findly Oh anyway, unavoidable. Yeah, so you have to find those wind turbines and turn them on with your little partner. There, your little friend, and I have two left, and I don't know where the fuck they are, don't. I don't want to look them up. That's the thing is, like, I I could have found it by now, but I was like, why can I not find them? So I think you have to jump off like the one side of the ship and you have to go back as they have to go. You take your glider and go out and then back under the bottom of the ship there's like a hole. Yeah, they don't remember the windows that you have to go through. And I remember that the Boss is sweet though. That's all I remember about that one. I think, Yeah, that was the boss is really cool. I found on passage that goes do you go down a ladder and then there's like a sliding passage down to a grate that's supposed to open, but I don't know how to open it yet and and so anyway, yeah, I'm a bit stuck right now on it. But that's where I'm at. So I'd like to finish that and then I've done I think a couple of the temples at least, because I think I did another one I don't really remember, so yeah, a little bit of Tears of the Kingdom. I just need to beat that temple and then I would like to adventure a little bit more and play it more. We've also been playing Megan bought Super Mario Bros. Wonder, so we've been playing that now and then, and it's kind of been an interesting It's been an interesting change from like the other games that you play because the graphics have kind of updated. It's crazy how yeah, how they can actually make new in a new Mario game, Like how can they keep changing these Mario games with something fresh? And it is fresh? We have I haven't beat it yet because I I'd rather play with other people, yeah, than just by myself. Yeah. Yeah, we've played it bunch. We got Yeah, very cool. It's hard though, better mechanics, it feels better to play. Yeah, a lot of it's intense. Feels better to play though, but it's that's a good thing because it gets pretty intense sometimes and you've got different layers, you know, you got background, foreground, mid ground kind of thing, which is really neat, but you know, it still feels like a class at Mario Bros. Game So we're just kind of moving through those. And I like how on the map you've got open kind of world sort of style where you're going to you can just choose what level you want to do, as opposed to being on a set track all the time. You can go to different things at some points. So that's cool. Yeah, and really trippy gameplay. So a lot of cool different things going on. But that's been interesting. So we're going to play a little bit more of that. But Megan also bought or at least I did. I bought it for her because she was curious Hogwarts Legacy on Switch. So she doesn't really mind about graphics or all that stuff, right, so she was like, I got it too, I don't care about that shit. Yeah, so I bought it four because it was on it's not on sale, but it's not full price. It's not like fifty nine or seventy nine or whatever. It was like forty nine, I think. So I bought it for her. So she wants to play it, but she wants to wait till she has like a good amount of time to really get into it, which makes sense because that's what we do when we're playing something so big. So that'll be interesting to see how Megan enjoys Hogwarts Legacy. I'd like to watch her play that. Man. I was playing Tiers the Kingdom in front of her. I was on the couch and I don't generally and I never have, but like, I don't fart in front of like partners, you know, I don't do that kind of thing. I try not to. Yeah, I just I don't know why. I just don't like shitting myself in front of like pussy, my partner, all that stuff. Right, So I never had I fart on my land. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm I'm playing Tires the Kingdom and it was a really intense part where I had to like glide and make a jump at a certain time and it was a timing thing, right, And Megan's just playing her switch next to me, and I'm just like and I like jumped to go over this thing. I was like, like, I hipped this huge fart on the couch and I looked at it. I was like like I gasped. I was like I didn't know it wasn't It wasn't me. I felt like phony Bob from a fucking ob alone or the old man CLI. Sorry, Cliff, I don't like that. It's a lie. You should be able to release anyway. It was funny, obviously we laughed. It wasn't like she was like disgusted. She's like, don't ever do that. I can get used to it. She thinks it's hilarious. Yeah, it's been a little bit of a little bit of gaming, you know, I want to do more. I had to do a bunch of updates on my fucking Xbox. Turns out that I was a bit confused as to the new features of the Xbox updating, like the audio update thing, because I noticed that it wasn't. Every time I would turn on my Xbox, even at mom and Dad's house, it was an updating. I had to keep waiting for updates. But now it's working again, so I don't know. I don't get it. But as long as you've got it on the ego mode for power saving options or whatever, it does auto download even on explor net Internet. I feel like the PS five is better at it than Xboxes. Yeah, I just find the whole the whole app companion Apple It. Yeah, that's it for me though. Good animal crossing too. Because I've been trying to contribute to my museum. I've been catching a lot of fish I'd never had before, and stuff with bugs. Blah blah blah. It's going pretty well. I guess. Well, you know what, I'm happy that you've actually turned on a game recently, you know. Yeah, I'm happy, Dad, I'm happy for you. Shall I go next? Su Sure? I picked up I picked up Plotal Fantasy fourteen online for PS five. Actually, i'mout at all every every expansion that comes out. I like to dabble because I actually really enjoy playing the story in these games for some reason, like I wanted to wait until all the long Q times were done because the cues were ridiculous. I call it Pam's countdown simulator. Yeah yeah, because I never see her playing. I just see her waiting there at a cue. Is that that cool new countdown simulator? And then she always gets mad she's playing it right now? But like, the cues are back, The accues are fine. Now, it's like two minutes maybe a minute you wait to get in, so it's not bad at all. But like I can't create a new character. I was going to create a new character and level a tank, but that doesn't happen because all the servers are locked from making new characters, and I can't make a new character anywhere. So you're playing an existing character you had. Yeah, I'm playing my change jobs anyway. Yeah, but I don't know. I didn't really like the look of my monk, so I was like, oh, well, I'll just change like the race and the character like all that. So I made a cool, big, like tiger cat guy with like a Westmoreland white face and black eyes. You know what's Borland? Who the fuck's that? We? You know west Bortland is Dan. He's the bass player for the guitar players. Guitar player. Yet oh he's always like that, like those eye Yeah, he always had like contacts in and like yeah pain on and looked all fucking weird. Oh okay, yeah, So and then now I'm leveling my tank that way. So I just switched my job. The monk is is getting a little too confusing for me. I don't I just want to, you know, play a tank because I have to wait fifteen minutes for a DPS to get into a dungeon and it's super annoying, so I'd rather just use a tank. But my tank's only level twenty five and the new contents at level ninety. So I've just started playing the the expansion with my new one. I'm all, yeah, So it's been two years, almost three years since the last expansion for Final Fantasy fourteen, Like it isn't that crazy, this is me? Oh yeah, that's all long and it's a long fucking time. Yeah, and that's also what I was waiting for for them to do the graphic update. And it looks pretty good, like you can definitely tell, like on the close ups and the textures and stuff. It's way nicer, nice and smooth. But yeah, it's you know, it's cheesy. It's super cheesy Final Fantasy cheese acting and story like it's like friendships and love and all that kind of bullshit. I like it. The story is shaping up to be pretty cool. Uh yeah, pretty cool, pretty cool. So Final Fantasy fourteen. I bought The Lord of the Rings Returned to Maria on Epic Game Store for like twenty bucks. Oh yeah, jumped into that for like twenty minutes. It was pretty cool, like the like you're it's a crafting survival, but you're in Maria and you're just like going down levels, I think, and you're just gonna have a Maria. Is there anything outside Martagin of just all within those it's all in the caves. Interesting. So, like the lighting is really cool with all the the fires and the torches and everything is really cool. And then you can see like goblins popping out of the shadows like down the corridors of the destroyed. And you can fight them. Yeah, you can fight them if you can catch them. They'll like burrow into the ground, into the walls and stuff like this scurry on the ceiling. Yeah, pretty cool. I haven't played much of it yet, though, I kind of want to. Wait. Uh and then what else was it? Outward? We got Outward. I bought Outward for everybody with the Elder Trolls funds, and we were joined by. Tell you why I can't play? I sort of interrupt. I forgot to tell you why I can't play that with you tonight. That was supposed to be kind of part of my intro, but I forgot all about it until just now. Uh So it's RedFest tonight in Cornwall. Oh, and Megan is up We were upstairs earlier and we're just looking at She's like, oh, third festinnight. I was like, oh, don't you guys do She's like, do you want to get high and then go? Well, because they have they have fair donuts there. Man, Okay, it was blooming delicious. Oh and those yeah. So anyway, I was like, oh, that'd be fun. I was like, she's looking at musical acts. I was like, who's playing. She's like, uh, this person, this person, this people, these people. I'm like, I don't know anything. She's like crash test dummies. I was like, what crash test stummies are playing a ball tonight? And I was like, we have to go. I was like, I would love to go see crash test dummies fucking play at nine thirty quarters. I don't know if they're any good live, but it would be nice to go and check them out. So I think we're going to try to go so I can listen to some Peter Pumpkinhead or or I don't think they'll play Pumpkinhead, but they'll definitely do that. Why wouldn't they That's one of the freaking was it. Peter was one of their big ones, but he never he doesn't really even sing in that song. It's featuring some other singer, but they might still do it. I don't know, but Superman never made I would love to see that anyway. Sorry, So that's why I won't be here tonight. So continue, Well, we'll try where We played a full session like a week ago, and it was very fun, it. Was very adventurous. We took some videos, so I'm going to try to make a little like recap video thing and throw it up on the YouTube. But it's it's fun, like it's just you adventuring with your buddies and you're just out there. You're not really following anything crazy, Like there's like this one main quest that you have to get done, and we did it already. We like pooled our money together to okay, yeah, but to preface things, we were using a mod to increase the amount of co op partners you can have. So you can only have two usually oh sorry, two player co op usually, but we have this raid mod that increases that to twenty, so you can have as many, basically as many as you want up to twenty. But it doesn't make that quest any harder. I don't think. So we were just, yeah, it does it. There's there's an option for scaling in in the raid, and I just put it to like default scaling, so I don't know if it's no, but default scaling. The quest itself was to get one hundred and fifty silver and pay off your families like blood debt or whatever. But if you're playing by yourself, you're like, how the fuck am I going to get out one hundred and fifty silver by yourself? Is quite a bit. And then we were like, oh, well have as much. I have this much, So we just pulled our money together to finish the main quest, like it's just done now, like I don't even know. And then we just went out and adventure. An adventured, yeah, and we ran into like this big we went through a K've fought some troglodytes or whatever the hell they called, Yeah, I think they are, And then we went and found this big bandit camp which was crazy thought a bunch of bandits and like the main boss was just whooping our ass. It was a very fun time. And you can you can like cook and make sure you're eating and hydrating and all that. Kind of stuff. Yeah, you have to. It's kind of it's hard because when you die, it takes off a bit of your maximum health each time, so you can't full heal back to full. You're like get oh, and you have to find like food or these potions or this tea that restores your max health, which is a giant pain in the ass because like I was always dying and we always had our burnt health, so like half of our health could not be restored until we either went back to town to drink this tea or we had the tea on us today and then we could sleep it off. Yeah, all this shit, it's like it's got some cool mechanics, but it's not over the top up. You know. I didn't find like I was like always hungry. I always had to eat. You're always eating because you have to like restore that HP, so like your stomach's always kind of full because you're always trying to restore HP. Yeah, it gets whenever they do, they make it too demanding all those features. I don't like that at all. I shouldn't be fucking seventy five percent of the time focusing on how hungry my stupid character is. Like that's not enjoyable. Yeah, in this game, it's more like you're focused on not dying from a fight. I wish, I wish maybe there was a bit more of like abilities. There's no abilities, you just like auto attack. And yeah, well I think we'll get abilities when we finish more quests like those you know, like kick you know kick and that. Other you have Kick's at the beginning end. So I think the thing is. Yeah, in the raid mod, it. Says allow a quest skill rewards for all players, so every one should get all the rewards. So whenever someone because I've I'm hosting the world, like I'm hosting the story, I guess, and they're joining me, so it's my progress. Mm hmm. So whenever I do a quest, YadA, YadA, YadA. It Originally, if you were to do it with a co op partner, that co partner doesn't get the rewards for the quest. They're just they're just helping you. So now with the raid mods, you can actually tell it to just give everyone, like the skill rewards or the. Whatever, like the big rewards, give it to everybody. We got some silver from that one quest. We finished the Shield quest, and then I like split it to I split. It with everyone. So that's how we're kind of doing. It, but very fun. We're gonna play tonight hopefully and have a little bit more of an adventure. We haven't heard from PQ though, I don't know if he's alive still after his little vacation. But other than that, I think I think that's that's it. I'm building a computer for Eric's Eric's brother because his died, so I'm building a computer for him over the next. Couple of days. Pretty good deals. I got a nice combo deal for the motherboard, memory and CPU. Though I went there, you got to go combo deal. Yeah. But I went there and I was like, you have this combo. They're like yep, and they go get me the pieces and I'm like, this is the wrong memory and there's only one stick here. They're like, oh no, we don't have that combo deal. But we have the same one but with a different RAM because we don't have the RAM in that combo, so we'll give you this combo. I was like, it's like okay, fine, and it was a little bit cheaper. So instead of thirty two gigs a RAM, he gets sixteen gigs and it's a little bit slower the RAM. It wasn't six thousand megahurtz, it was fifty fifty eight hundred fifty six hundred. But like he's not a crazy like gamer or like over clockers, so sixteen gigs should be should suffice for now, But yeah, I'll. Be building that, uh regarding outward, because I don't remember what you guys might have mentioned this in the group chat, but I don't know if I saw it. Did you say it's out for any consoles or just PC? Right now? It's not cross play, so it's out for Xbox and but it's not cross That's why I bought it. That's why I bought it all on for Steam. So if we can one thing, okay, that is a small, small rant right now, that is something they got to fucking work on. The first thing, okay, it's mighty don't have to do with early access. Maybe this is maybe maybe this is related, I know, but I don't. I don't, but like something has to happen so that you guys and me can play a game on Launch together cross platform. Like that's the way this is all going now, because like that in twenty twenty four, it is absolutely ridiculous to expect people to just like have to get it on PC just to play with their friends. Like what if I don't have a fucking PC, I can't play this game with my friends. And it depends on playing with friends, Nikki, So it doesn't make any sense. They have to fucking do something about this because I find that ridiculous that I can't even buy Outward on a console that it's out for and play with other people on other platforms, Like there's so much gaming happening now to build this bridge life. All we can play is Rocket League and yeah, how long has it been going on? Though? Like this has been an issue for It's not the dev so it's like all the companies. They're either security policies or their strategy, their strategies on how they want to sell games, right, because like, oh, if if I can play with everybody, then like I'll get it. Why why don't I Just I don't know, I don't know what the thought process behind it is. I know Sony for a very long time was always Kaibo washing the cross play, always Kibo washing the cross play, and they'd only let they'd only let the big players like Fortnite allow it because they're paying so much money or people were like using the PlayStation so much more for those games, you know what I mean. So I don't know. I don't know what it is behind the scenes, what they have to offer Sony or Xbox or whoever just to get that working. But it's always up to the public, the like Sony or Microsoft to allow it. Yes, yeah, maybe maybe a future episode. Yeah maybe. Yeah. It was about to say we should delve deeper. Uh, but yeah, Microsoft is trying, Like I'm I'm going to assume the next Xbox is going to have some sort of like Steam client thing. It's gonna have to what do you mean, like like the player Steam games on your Xbox player, Epic Games Library on your Xbox. Let's say that. Let's say we'll because why wouldn't see what we can if they're available on console discuss? Yeah, right, anyway, Uh, that's it for me. Well and Overwatch, but no one wants to listen about that. Ah. Yeah, I haven't really had anything we've talked about out word already. Cool, but I have a little piece of news that's funny. Sure. Sure, So after we talked about last episode, the Apex battle pass increase and rework. Since I was announced on Steam, there were seventy thousand negative reviews bombed they got lit up on Steam, seventy thousand negative reviews since that change was announced, and then this week guess what happened? They backpedaled on the Battle Pass changes, saying most of all of them, yeah, yeah, but saying that they've heard, They've listened to the community. We have heard you. We will like they're not. They're basically only allowing people to buy the pass again now with the CNS. Yeah, that's basically the only change that they're But does that mean that you only get that half battle pass with the coins like nine hundred and fifty coins now, and I can only buy that half season pass. They're gonna do as minimal as they can, you know, so like, well, give them the Ship Battle Pass, give them the enough coins to get the Ship Battle Pass, and tell them the fuck off while there's like the second Level Battle Pass and then the Ultimate Super Level Battle Pass. You know, but they are allowing everyone to earn the battle Pass through in game challenges, so you can get it for free if you do all these in game challenges, which I will probably do because I can easily complete most of that stuff anyway, and I already spent my coins after they fucking announced that I wouldn't be able to use them, so I already spent them. But I don't really care because I got my heirloom. I also reached a thousand kills on Crypto since started playing him this season. Very fun fun playing Crypto. Wow, hmm, thousand kills. Speaking of kills, I played some Concord, that Concord game for PS five PC. Oh, it's like supposed to be the Overwatch Killer. I played for a couple hours. It's pretty cool. Is that pretty good? Had the cinematic yeah, or like. It's an Overwatch killer. You have to pay for the Guardians of the. Galaxy, the Guardian Guardians the Galaxy X esque game, so they will be charging like fifty bucks Canadian but have no battle passes or anything in the game. Yeah. No, they've said you pay once and we're just gonna keep updating this game and giving content for the characters if you pay once. So and like rhymical rewards yeah yeah, you know, like challenged rewards and stuff like that. So let's be honest here, is this what we want to see? Or do we want to see battle Past stuff because this is what I want to see. So I'm probably gonna support them by buying it for the fifty dollars because if it's anything like over Rug, which I've played in it is, I'll get my playtime out of it, and I'll support that. I had idea of how I want games to be in the future model. Yeah, I mean I like to agree with that because I that would eliminate cheaters, Like cheaters aren't going to pay fifty bucks every time their account gets banned, you know, like that's not going to happen. That would eliminate almost all cheating, you know what I mean. Or charge for the bottom and stop. Like that's why all these free to play games are rampant with cheaters. It's a free to play fucking game. They just create a new account. They don't care at all. Just charge thirty bucks for the game. They would be gone. They're not paying thirty dollars, although maybe they would because they pay for their fucking cheats anyway. But they're gonna pay for the cheats and the game and a new account every time. I don't think so thirty bucks it'll maybe it would slow. Down, Yeah, it would slow them down and make them think twice at least. But yeah, it was pretty cool. I was playing a handful of matches. I'll have to see more, but I'd rather I'd rather buy for fifty bucks and never have to worry about battle passes and paying for like I don't know if they're going to come out with like paid skins. I don't know about that, but so far, no battle passes and anything like that. It's probably going to follow the same kind of model as Hell Divers too, which I'm all for because that was fantastic model. Hopefully they start this trend, you know, and it takes off, because I'd rather spend a little bit money up front and not have to get bombarded with bullshit through my gameplay. Stuff like that. But we said that our prediction was more free to play games. H Yeah, my prediction because of how slimy the industry is. Yes, but I would like it. I would like to see it this way. Yes, yes. Another thing on the gaming news Overwatch. Overwatch might be moving back to six v six instead of their current five v five PvP model. If they do this, they have essentially reverted the game back to how it was an Overwatch what completely negating even the reason to make Overwatch two. So like all the major things that made them make Overwatch two have been scrapped if they go through this. The two main big things were the PvE mode they promised and overwatched and the six v six PvP, which are now like, there is no PvP, there is no PV mode, so. That was scrapped. And if they scrapped the six v six it's essentially Overwatch one. So they've wasted all this time just trying to push this Overwatch too and all this bullshit when they could have just kept building on Overwatch one. Mm hm oh man, did they do that with Counterstrike two? Like counter Strick two? It was? I played it. It's the fucking exact same. I don't know, but did like the progression? I don't know. I haven't played Counterstriking Like did they like Overwatch two? You could? You didn't get any of your old shit. It's gone right, twenty years it was gone. So to do to uh kind of cushion that blow you during like your season progression, you get you get these coins called ancient coins or something or currency to buy older skins. So they give these to you for free if you play the game and you don't have to be you don't have to. Buy into the baddle pass to get these ancient coins. You just have to play, and then eventually you can get their classic skins that you had before with these coins instead of them just giving it back to you. Right. So I was playing, and I had saved up all these Overwatch coins from doing my like bing Microsoft search bullshit to get my Microsoft points, and then I buy Overwatch coins so I don't have to actually pay for my Overwatch coins. And I finally saved up enough to get a battle Pass. And what do I do. I look at the battle Pass. I'm like, oh, twenty five days left. I'll wait for the next one. I go take a ship ten minutes. Shit, I come back. I'm like, buy battle Pass. I completely forgot that I wanted to do that, Like my brain was absolute, much like. And then I'm playing, and then I I realized I bought it because I see like the progression going and it's like. Oh, premium reward, premium. I'm like what wow. I was like no, it was like I didn't want to buy this because the season's almost done. You're so fucking used to it. You're such an addict, a video game addict, that you buy literally everything you possibly can click purchase on and just your brain just completely clouds over, just like purchase five. So now I've got to get to Level Eady in twenty five days, and I'm. It's called that moment of clarity now to an addict, that's where you're like, oh, I'm not gonna I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. You just go, oh yeah. Then he goes on fox sake. Now I've got to get I've got to do like three levels a day to reach Level Lady in twenty four days. So somehow, some time today, I've got to do my three levels. I don't know how. Gonna fucking do this, because if I get to the end, then I've got I can get my mythic coins to buy my mythic skin for Kirico, and it's sick and I want it, so I'm gonna get it. Okay, that's the one with one of her shirt as well. Maybe I'll play with you. I I have some funny I have some funny gaming news as well, A little a little thing before we move on so check this out. Games Radar Li's this This headline Assassin's Creed Shadows debate somehow reaches Japanese government ministries, who reportedly remind everyone that they don't give a fuck because like what because they signed this. There's a petition going on about reporter asked eposed questions about the historical accuracy of the Japanese government, you know, how how do they feel about Assassin's Creed Shadows not being historically accurate potentially or whatever? And the Japanese government was like, we don't care. What why are you asking? So this debate has actually officially gotten so fucking blown out of proportion, all these babies crying about historical inaccuracies on Assassin's Creed that it's eventually trickled down into the Japanese government's ears and they're like, we don't care. This is actually not our concern at all. Isn't the whole premise of Assassin's Creed where you like go back in time, Like, yeah, it's bullshit, it's not at all. Literally, I actually. Had this notes for the last episode that I completely forgot to bring up, but I had a whole thing a spiel about this it's like their original assassin's creed is complete fucking farce, Like they had to find this like God Crystal to talk to these beings that were first on the planet and talking to gods and all this shit, Like how is that historically act? You fucking idiots? God, Well, yeah, exactly, there's no, there's no. It's in Italy. Italy is a historic place, you know, like it's a real place. But like the ship that they were doing is not. You're you're fucking stupid. And then they had this pretty hard when I thought they had this petition that was going around online to try to make you be soft or something, or I guess the government of Japan to stop you be soft from making this samurai like Jack, this black samurai all this stuff. I was like, oh my god, it's so crazy, like the amount of racist, fucking assholes that just can't get around like a character being black in another Like, fuck man, it's crazy. It's absolutely insane. It's probably the big the biggest point of contention. I don't know what other historical historical accuracy they might be referring to. There could be more, but that's probably a big one. I think it's just like he wasn't a same because he wasn't given the title, but like yeah, yeah, yeah, we we covered why Yeah, Japanese government certainly doesn't, so they don't give a fun I thought that would be man, that's crazy, it's so crazy. We do not with respect, We do not have to give it a ship that was a French Japanese though to give it pretty good? Do you? Sounded like on the Viceroys from uh yeah, from Star Wars Star Wars so with to Jedi in the place? Is that? So there's another another quick thing? Really? So I just want to get off my chest. More people, more influencers in all this stuff, more people accused of being inappropriate to minors and d ms and on the internet. So the doc accused of that mister beasts like transgender uh huh, YadA, YadA, YadA, So like is it I just want to ask a question. Is it that hard not to have inappropri conversations with people like no matter their age or gender, Like, just be a decent human being and don't talk about your junk or they're junk, or how you'd like to touch their junk or how you want them to touch your junk. Just leave the junk alone. Man talk about it, David, I don't understand. Fincher said it perfectly. He said, people are perverts, the director. People are perverts. That's all it is. They're just perverts. Like it doesn't know, it's not stopping, it's unstoppable. What what who did girl? Girl? Girl with the dragon tattoo? That director the social network, he's a pervert. But man, like I don't know, I don't get it, especially if you're like on the internet, your influence, your like on YouTube. You got money. Man, the rules don't apply to you. They think that, but it's gonna get out eventually, you know, like just just be a decent read the full details of. Have a proper conversation with somebody and just don't have it go that far. Like like I mean, they like, what it couldn't have been that bad? Could have They reinstated his contract, They saw all the dms, they looked at everything, went through the courts, They gave him his contract back, they paid him out, Like did it was it not? Was it still that bad? Like they did all that and it was Oh. People are saying it's so like I don't even know, I don't know the full details, but they tolerances I think for how what they view as all appropriate. But this was in the courts, like they went through the courts. They they went through all the d ms and all the vans. Yeah for doc and like they gave him they get let him back on and they went it settled. So like, I don't know what the hell the court's opinion and everyone builified general public's okay, Well what how bad really was it? If they went through it all and they found that it was not bad enough to give him all his money back and reinstate his things, So like I don't fuck and then now he's canceled, even though that when it's all, it takes it all, it takes now, So lesson learned. Don't DM people don't know what conversation do m me, don't even fucking think about it. I'm not You don't know who you're talking to. And then it's like you you let a little dick joke slip and you're fucking canceled, you know, like you do this joke, I joke about little dicks. Like you don't know who you're talking to about you don't know if they're twelve fifteen seventeen twenty. You don't know anything, so just don't do it. That's true. You don't know how old anyone is. Like when your. Community is going on and you're talking to your your screen and all that you're doing, leave it there and like have a robot talk to your fucking community, or just don't talk about your penis. It's not it's not hard, well, the penis. It's not hard to talk about to not talk about your penis anyway. I just thought that was it's also not hard to talk about your penis. Just remember not everyone's another person's treasure. Okay. Yeah, And it's the same fucking rule as political opinions on your social media, Like just don't do it. Yeah, it's simple. The eyes are upon you. Don't talk creepy ship to people in d ms, don't post personal opinions on your fucking social media. It's just focus on what you are to people. You are literally a money making machine. Nobody cares about your personal opinions or your sexual appetites. Oh, they care about just two opinions. People care. That's why people follow them. That's I think that's a big thing, because like if you choose one side or the other. Then you'll get all that community right behind you, right, I think I think that's a big thing. Yeah, but it's a dangerous game. But it's a dangerous game, yeah, right in the fence, you know. I think that here's the problem before we move on to the quick philosophy. I think that's just a sick thing that that's that that's a that's a twisted curiosity that people have though on social media. They I don't think they actually care about their personal opinions. I think that somebody probably follows somebody like the doc on person on social media to see, oh, oh, what's he think about this? Let's he thinking about this? Not that they are hoping that he aligns with them or anything, not necessarily, but also that they just want to know. And then they're like, eh, he's this, and then they get all pissed, right, and then that's where it all starts. So anyway, I think it's a twisted, a weird, twisted curiosity that we have to follow people for their their personal especially celebrities, right because it's the Entertainment People magazine and all this bullshit like that. It's been huge for years, dude, social media. Yeah, exactly, and I was watching a video. I was watching a video, like who cares, I don't even know. I was watching a video of Ninja talking about all of it. And he's just like, ever since I got like pretty pretty big, he says, I don't DM anybody. I don't I'm not in the room with anybody alone. There's always either someone in there in a room, if I'm in a meeting or if I'm meeting fans or whatever, there's always someone there. You know. It's it never gets to that point. And he's like, I never DM people. I never reply to d ms. I don't do any of that ship And that's what you gotta do. That's just the bottom line. It's pretty easy too. I bet the doctor's office. It's like the doctor's office, whenever he goes to shove his finger in your butt, someone walks in, right, because then you don't, Yeah, that's what happens. So they have the person walk in and like pretend to do like paperwork or something, so he has someone in there while he sticks his finger in your butt, So then you can't tell him. You can't because there's another person there that'll say, nope, that was that was a good finger. In the butt. You know, they're like watching him. Oh that's all. I was just a finger in the bomb. They're like the finger in the bomb. But that's that's all I wanted to get off my chest anyway, anything else, all right, no, no, right, let's get into our episode topic. The main topic early access. Is it good? Is it bad? But first I'm gonna send you guys over to the merch store if you want to, you know, help the show. We sold a couple of shirts last week. Very cool, very good. Yeah, if you want to support the show. That's how we do it. There's a merch store. It'll be in the link. Now onto today's topic. All Rightyboddy, Today I wanted to talk about early access, the good and the bad. Okay, there are two types of early access. Let's remember here. Okay, yes I had that here, yes, yeah. So there's the true early access, the true one, I guess, the good one in my opinion. So when the game is set to release, or when a company is set to release a full game, they'll probably be like, oh, you get two weeks early access if you buy the deluxe edition, kind of like what they do with Starfield and other games. Okay, so that people can buy their deluxe edition get two weeks or a week head start on everybody for an extra I don't know, twenty bucks, yes, right, I said before. I don't mind this practice because the game is full, it's a full game about to be released. You know, you know you're going to get a quote unquote full game. Okay, I agree, Okay, okay, full game ready for launch. So like you get excited and. Then you just want to get into that game, so you pay an extra twenty bucks and you get in for a week early. Yeah, that's the biggest fucking scam there is. Why do you think it's a scam? It's a scam because, like, the game is ready, just launch it. They're gouging people an extra twenty dollars for a game that they're just going to release in five days anyway, and they're just releasing it early and they're gouging. Yeah, but you don't release it five days early because then well they just you don't need to do five days. Then you're not playing the game, well everyone else is, so they formally bro Yeah, they take advantage of you through your fomo to try to gouge you for an extra twenty dollars on an already eighty dollars games though you need to get other exclusive playing the game five days early. Yeah, but with the DELXE, it's not just early access. They'll give you a skin or like that's a gotcha, that's a gotcha. They're trying to got you with a full paid game. Yeah. But then that brings us back to how I see that how they're trying to uh charge more for their games without actually charging more for the games, right, because how Capcom said that games prices are going to go up, So would you rather spend like not get early access because they're going to gouge you anyway in a couple of years when all games are going to be one hundred and twenty dollars. They're just I don't think there's a benefit of it at all in terms of the consumer. Hm hm, Like they're just feeding on the instant gratification that consumers crave. Yes, it's like the game is probably not even done yet, Like there's probably bugs and ship anyway that's going to happen. They're just kind of that's all happening. That's another thing that's all going to happen in the early access, all the crashing and the fucking issues, like if you wait till you're going to get a smoother because they're going to figure out the ship during the early access that you people pay extra for, that's probably broken. And you know what I mean. If I saw there was some little thing that I really wanted that it's like, oh shit, like a skin or something, and I was like, I don't fucking care, Like if i'll play you know, if I get that kind of cool thing but nobody else does because I got it early access or whatever, then I might consider it. But I honestly I did we do that with Starfield? Was that early access? I did? Really? Is that typically what it was? No? I didn't because I always flourishing Balder's Gate, So I didn't do it. Yes, there's always something else to play. You don't need to play early access and pay thirty dollars more. That's idiocy. It's absolutely dumb, very very strong. Take it, buddy, fuck you. Okay. I wanted to play Starfield. So I did the same with the album for I bought the deluxe edition, got my early access, got my little skins. You know, I enjoyed that. The early access was fantastic. That's another that's a game that's big time taking advantage of the FOMA because you have to get levels. You have to you know, you have to grind, you have to be in front of everybody, but you got to get five days early on the grind. Like, fuck you, no way, man. I don't like that. I don't like genius. So that's the one type of that's the one type of early access. Okay, the one that I actually don't mind buying into. I don't now there's the other early access. There's pros and cons for this one as well. Okay, So a game is getting released or you hear about this game, Oh, I'm really excited about this game, and they're like, oh, it's coming early access yeah, and you're like, oh, and it's like fifty percent off early access. You can get into the game and play early. It's not done. You know, they'll plaster that everywhere. Make sure you know that it's early access. There's going to be bugs, the quests aren't going to be complete. It's not a full game, YadA, YadA, YadA. But you're still going to pay. It's kind of fifty bucks, right, sometimes not even beta, sometimes even before beta. Sometimes sometimes it's early access. Shit lasts for two fucking years. Yes, that's what I that's what I don't. I don't. I think this is like a double edged sword almost for the developers anyway, because these yeah, did these games even ever really release? Like, I don't remember a release of an early access game other than the early access released in that long Did they ever have like a launch event saying, oh, we're no longer and I've never seen it. So here's an example, tem Tem. I bought an early access I got for like fifty percent off, and I spent one hundred hours of that game and I haven't even finished it yet. I spent one hundred hours or I did one hundred hours in that game before early Access was done, okay, and I didn't finish that game. They did have a big announcement, they did a big event in game, they released on multiple consoles for the full release, okay, and then whenever that full release came, even more people came in, and then it blew up some more. It had some life. I went back in, but the game was so fucking hard and I didn't know where I was because I kept leaving and coming back because on these early access games. You go in and you hit the content cap or the content ceiling that they've developed for, and you're like, Okay, i'll see you. In a couple of months. I guess when you release the next or you get it even officially released. This is like what happened to Power World. Like I put in sixty hours of Power World early access, I don't. I don't play sixty hours of many games. I'm not really gonna I don't really feel like going back and playing that even when it's fully released released, Yeah, yeah, for sure, there's no there's no Yeah. So it's kind of a double edged whether the developers need the money to help develop the game so they allow people to play it in early access when it's not done, so it gives them a revenue stream to help develop the game to full full to foc I don't know, it's like full operating, I forget what stands for but for the full version. But yeah, like who's going to play? So that much as the game of investors these days, like actual investors closing studios down, like all these studios closing, like so many there's so many independent developers now that have to rely on this as their revenue stream to fund their game, right, they can't go to They're not like they can't go to these board of investors and anymore. And like, you know, find all these people that are going to like they have to go to the fans who want to play it. And it's definitely a double edged sword. Because when they go to these big companies to fund their games, then that big company has to say so of when or if they're going to close the studio after right, So like like oh okay, they. Say, oh, we'll buy your company for a fifty per share or something, right, and they give you all this money and you're like the Chiching. You're like yeah, and you take that money. Yeah, right, and you make your game and then afterwards they're like it's not selling. Well, you know, we want our money back, YadA, YadA YadA. To do this, you're gonna have to do this, this and this, and if we don't get our money back, we're firing people, We're closing the studio. If you have an independent do you think studio and you don't go to these guys, early access and crowdfunding is probably way to go, right. You get your money from the people who want to play your game, and then you know, you develop it. As you have that revenue stream in, you come up with updates to entice more people to buy into the early access. Right, you show your progress so people buy into the early access to keep you going that kind of shit. It's also kind of it gives them kind of an excuse too, though, to hide behind. It's like, oh, it's early access, early access. Hey, the game's not that good, but you know it's early access. But you charged people for the game. They gave you money for a product. Yeah, although they knew that it's not done. But like, yeah, that gray fucking whatever the fuck game you play, it was awful. It's egregious to have charged money for that. Egregious. I refunded. It was like, this game is not a it's not a game. Sorry, Daniel, gone gone to the days. Gone are the days where you had passionate people making video games, finding passionate yes, investors he believed in these games, who are like, no, I believe in you are making something very special here, and I want to in time to develop those relationships and those rapports. Right, and now it has to do with that instant gratification we need this game out now to do with money money now or the dopavine kicks people last episode revenue streams. In the last five years, the gaming industry has completely changed. Since the launch of Fortnite, free to pay, free to play game with you know, micro transactions up the wazoo. Ever, since that it was five years ago, right whenever that was six years ago, the gaming industry has completely changed because these guys are making so much fucking money now that it's not about what the game is that they don't care about the the gamer. I don't care about you. They care about EA cares about making three billion dollars on Apex Legends micro transactions. That's all they care about. Well. Well, A con and a pro as well for this is you get it at a discount, right, So like I like getting I like getting games at discounts. Sure, if a game like tem Tem it was, like I'm much to say now probably like no, I think it released that full price like eighty dollars, but now it's down like discounts. Now I see it on PlayStation for like thirty bucks now, right. All the pros for this kind of model is what tem Tem is. The game was great. It was completely solid. All the time I played in early access, I had zero issues with crashing bugs, all that shit. The only thing was that the content was a bit slower to come out, so you'd hit that ceiling and then you'd vanish for a month or so, come back hit that ceiling again. You know. But like they were active on their social media is they were active on the Steam community page. They were telling people what's going on, like all that stuff, like all the pros to this early access stuff, tem tem and they're and their developer like handled it perfectly perfectly. And that is a game where I was like, you know what, I would have paid full price for this anyway, Like I would have paid ninety dollars for this, But the fact that I'm getting it for forty bucks and I get to play a year earlier than it releases, I'm that's. I'm all for that. But it's all such a gamble because you don't know who's behind the curtain, right, you don't know who's pulling the strings and and doing all this stuff. As long as they're transparent and they like give all that information and they keep on updating the game, I don't see I like getting games for cheap. It's the end. Yeah, I like getting games for cheap. And if I can put in like forty hours into an early access game, like that's pretty fucking good. Probably not, No, Like for me, I'm not going to put sixty hours into early access and then played again for another hundred hours, like I'm probably done with it. Either would I? I either would I? I think for most of the case, yes, there is there is something to the video gaming, the video gamers experience. There's a magic to the anticipation of an official release of a game, and I think that that part of the excitement of a new game is ruined by by early access. And they there's a lot of kind of like little things that come up, like you get a game early access and then yes it's let's say it's a two years away, and then you just got and then the game gets fucking stuck in limbo because all they're getting, like well, Star Citizen right one of the biggest early access games out there right now, I don't even think it's at early access yet, they're just stuck in limbo because they're getting all the funding they need and they what fucking point, what reason do they have to launch the game now, there is no incentive to there is zero. It's also like huge, mega massive game that they're just like no end to that. They are way like they're over ambitious. I feel yes, they're trying to think that they knew that going in. They do they have Do they have a switch point where it's like, okay, it's an actually full game, Like is there a point in their brain where they say, once, don't we hit this milestone? Maybe it's at this point. Probably not, I don't. It's just there and you can come in, and they need to come up with the nerve. The industry needs to come up with a new term then for games that are going to end up doing that, because like, don't call it early access, then don't even give us that fucking just call the game what it is, like, come up with a new word that described it's a line service game. That's all it is. Well, there you go, okay, So I don't know, it's just it's stupid because then it just takes away like that. The best gaming memories I have experiences are where I couldn't wait to play this game because it just came out and it's on the fucking shelf at a store because I still buy physical. And I go and I buy it and I take it home. I unwrap it and I'm like, cool, man, it's out. You know, you update a little bit and then you play it and then it gets up as it goes. Get that one copy? What Harvest Moon back to Nature? Oh yeah, the only copy? My brain? Yeah, I made that guy, So I think it's and how do we know? It was coming out that day? PlayStation magazine, PlayStation magazine and Stay magazine. Yeah, read it in a magazine. And then we call this the micro game. I don't remember what the fuck was called microplay? Game play game tech? Yeah, game tech. Are you getting this tomorrow? Uh? Yuh yep. We got one copy? And then you got to be there at fucking eight as. And I lined up and then of course no one I lined up. I was there and there was one guy behind me, and I was like, what are they wanted it? That? This guy wants Harvestman as well? So then I got in, I grabbed it off the shelf, and he's like and they turned out and he turned around and walked right out. Oh man, that's sad. Yeah? Is that sad? That makes my heart hurt. I hope, I hope he got to play it. He never played it, he never played Harvist Moon's and he's been searching for me ever since. Well, I went, like I went like forty five minutes before they opened. I was like, there's no way there's gonna be a lineup for Harvest. Moon, you know what I mean. And then like was now it was there's like twenty minutes to the store open, and. Buddy walked behind me. I was like, oh, I was like, there's no fucking way, it's like twenty minutes. Yeah, I can see something because like I went to Canada Computer today and people were lined. Up out there just to get into the store, you know what I mean. There's nothing being released today. They just wanted to get into the store at ten am sharp. So that's maybe what he was doing, just to get in there. Like well, anyway, I think that that is part, but maybe that's an older generation of gamer experience. Like I think that's part. Nobody knows what that's like anymore, not these fucking young whipper snappers, but like that was part. That's part of gaming for me, and I still look for that experience. I want to buy a game when it's out officially. I don't like I think, Jonathan, you probably said what I have the biggest problem with it is the whole hide behind thing, like, oh, you know, we're releasing this game and it's not done yet though, because like I know what that's like, creating something and having to put it in the world. I've said that before. I know what that's like to be like not sure about it and then like, okay, well, let's do early access where maybe we'll get some feedback on it early and fucking stand behind the game that you're making and you know it's just persistence and whatever, because then what you get all this feedback and when is your game going to be finished? You should do it, like on your next album, early access, early access, give everyone just the drunk track's track wherever song song should go. It's just a drump truck for every song. Oh yeah, thirty seconds thirty seconds for each song, and then keep releasing like twenty more seconds of each song every like three months. Yeah, that's so stupid. Well, I just think that there's a I think that feedback from a player base that makes sense. You know, that makes sense if you want feedback you can still have, but there's that, but they just want the cash. Yeah, I think I think it mostly started though for indie games where they didn't want to sell their souls, right, so they present a crowd funder and they said loosten listen. Yeah, like when it started. When it started, these people were actually like the devs were actually giving it. They're all and just showing what they can do so they could create these games. Then people were like, whow people actually paying for this, Let's fuck them, right, there's always there's always two parties. Well, it's more mostly just smaller studios obviously, and then it otherwise they would have open just open beta, like Blizzard has had to open beta weekends for de belfour and they were massive, like millions of people. But it's a huge game and it's a huge fan base already. These other games that are doing this early kind of access release stuff are small studios you know, that don't have the money to you know, they need the money. So I mean you can say they're hiding behind the early access, but they do need the money to help develop the game. But it's also like you're not really going to get a lot of people coming back for the full release, but they don't care, maybe because they already sold the game at you know, they already sold the game, they already got sales for the early access. Yeah, like take what's it called No Rest for the Wicked? Okay, so for instance, No Wicked, what was called. No Fish filled a Fish, No Rest for the Wicked. So I was looking forward to this game, No Rest for the Wicked. I was like, oh, man, it looks great, it's sweet. It's going to come out the game Pass right first day on game Pass, YadA, YadA, YadA. And then they're like they're like, oh, we'll do early access on Steam. Right, so it's going to come out this day on Early Access, and then a year later or something it's going to come out to game. Pass for for free, for free, quote unquote. I was like, ah, I didn't like it. I didn't like it. Right, And the amount they're charging for this early access was like fifty five dollars, like almost sixty dollars for early access, Like what the fuck? That's a lot of money for early access. And then that just turned me off and I was like, no, I don't need to play this. Well, what's the most you would pay for an early access forty bucks, thirty five, thirty bucks, thirty four should not be like it should be. Maybe it's a if it's a triple A game, Like let's say Mass Effect five comes out and they're like, oh, we're doing early access and you can buy it for fifty bucks, I'm like, Oh. They wouldn't, though they're big enough that they would do it. I'm just saying, like, let's say a huge double A game that's got a lot of traction. Let's say that Wu Kong game that's coming out, like that Unreal Engine five one that's got some traction going, you know, and they're like, oh, it's coming out in a month in early access, and we'll charge we'll charge fifty bucks for that. I'd be like, oh, I'd really think hard all that one m yeah, and then like and a year later it'll be fully released for one hundred dollars. I'm like, Oh, I think the hype there's pretty there's a decent amount of hype on that, so they would probably make money, yeah exactly, but like these but I think they have a decent enough amount of hype that they probably don't need to do that because they could make more selling the game at full price orders when it's ready, then people will just buy it. Whereas the games that need to do this are games that they want to build hype on, you know, and they don't have hype and they are smaller studios, so they need to charge people to get them in the door, to help them cover resources try the game out like that, you guys say that, would you guys say that early access is like the new generation of demoing? Then? You know, we used to get demos on the those are from like the magazines, you kind of paid for them. Yeah, but they're also yeah in a small way, I mean it's just beta. Is this the new form of demoing? Because there's still demos like your game, there's still free demos that people offer. They still do that ship Yeah remember the Steam next Fest that's all demos. Yeah, Okay, that's a whole interesting interesting. So demoing is in fact different than early accents. These days, you. Can go on your PlayStation and there's a whole like filter for just demos, and there's tons of demos on the PlayStation. Start. So some bad early access experiences for me, I gotta talk about those. Remember Daisy, Yeah that was actually early Accent. That was Access ten years Shared Experience. Okay, we know. We must have played five hundred hours in that game. We were on that game constantly, eight hours a day, and it was a piece of ship. The game was a piece of ship. But it was so fun when you had like four or five guys. Cool. Yeah, and it was like never It was like the first survival horror like survival crafting like horror game. Through the walls and just making the games pointless, like I just survived for two hours to have this fucking zombie run through the door and kill me, like what come? But that was early access. That was like the first big early access game and it was garbage and we played it constantly and we bought into that because it was it was like a mod off Arma three, which then released. Not only did you have to yeah yeah, not only did you have to buy it, you had to fucking mod the thing yourself. You had to buy Arma first, Arma two. That was before then you were able, yeah, yeh yeah, and then you were able, but then we had to buy Arma two first. Yeah. But then they actually made a day Z product the early access yes, yes, yeah, And then I think if you bought Arma three. You like got the day Z like product or something like that. I don't remember buying it twice. I would not have bought it twice, but like. That was the massive. We used to play that all the time and we loved it, but we hated it so much. And I was like, and I remember I remember making a bet with Peaks like, oh, we gotta go back to day Z. Like I'm not going back to that game. I'm like, I'll go back when they fully release it. Maybe go back there, man, I'll go back to when they fully release it. I was like, which is ever going to happen? It's always been, it will always ever be in is still I think it actually finally got fully released. Yeah it released December thirteenth, twenty eighteen. Okay, we were playing a long time ago. Yeah it is officially versus Yeah. Fuck that So yeah, Daisy, that was a big one. There was another one called Nether that I bought into, a post apocalyptic. Monster survival game. It was really cool, Like the early access was cool. It felt really like scary and stuff like that, and then as the early access went on it got really shitty. They changed ownership some other company bought the game dev studio, and then they started pushing like micro transactions. The development cycle stopped. There was like no updates for months and months and months and ever. It went silent, and then they. Rebranded the game, re release the game like that kind of bullshit happens all the time in early access. Yeah, yeah, you're you're more like that's what you're signing up for though, when you're buying early access game. So, I mean, some people don't care about taking that risk, but yeah, it is a risk. I mean the game could never come out, Yeah, exactly, the game could. You're buying a game that could they could literally just go under tits up. But you're gonna give them forty bucks. Yeah, right, you become the investor. You could go get your hair cut for yeah, but you become the investor, and then you don't get any say in anything, right, you don't get anything. You don't get almost a worst deal. Yeah, it's a worse deal. You can like you're putting your money on the line and hopes that these guys are legitimate and that they have heart to finish their project, and if they don't, then you're there. It goes forty from I can't speak for anybody, but from a personal point of view, you know, if I had anything to say bottom line about early access, it's just that, first of all, it's an immersion thing for me. I would never do early access, especially far out from a deadline or sorry from a release date or has no release date. I would never do that for a game I really really want to play, like something that looks incredible, something that's really anticipated to me, blah blah blah. I would never. I would not do that because I don't want to be disappointed. I don't want to be running into bugs and all this shit that's not complete, and it like immersion breaks for me, Like it breaks the immersion, because that's what I need from a game. I've told you that, guys. I've told you that to you guys before. I need the immersion. And if I'm pulled out of that from a game that just feels like there's just a fake world pulled in front of my eyes and it's like shitty and there's no depth to it and there's no whatever because it's not done yet, I can't have that. If it was a game I didn't give a shit about, I was like, oh, that looks kind of cool. Maybe that looks fun. You know, I might play that, then sure, because like I don't care either way. I'm not invested emotionally either, not just financially. You know. So if it was a huge game, like you know, like you said, something like a huge game like Starfield was half complete, and they're like here, you could pay you know, forty dollars to play, right, I'd be like, no, I'm not fucking doing that, waiting for you to finish that game so that I can play it as you intended it to be. So I think it's just dangerous if you're somebody who really loves immersion and you you run the risk of getting heartbroken because you've spent this money to play a game that you don't know when it's going to come out. Whatever, whatever, don't do it, Just don't do it. It's easy, like you said, Jonathan, there's lots of other games to play. There's tons, absolutely, if you don't really care, you know, if you don't really care and it looks kind of interesting, that's kind of cool. It might be fun to just kind of, you know, piss the time away a little bit, then sure, whatever I think you have to set an expectation for yourself as a gamer and be like, this is what I expect going into this, this is what could happen, and control and control your full controlling the. Because like if if everyone's in early access and all these news articles are writing about how great this game is but it's really actions yeah yeah, and you're like, ah, but I want to just wait till it's full and it's not getting released for another year and a half, and you're like, it won't be on anybody's mind. Such a punch in the dick. You're just like, like, it won't be on anybody's mind. Did they do an early access for Gollum or did they just release that when they thought it was finished kind of thing? I think they just, really, you still got to give us the game. You gotta do it. I know. That's a good example of the game that could have maybe used player feedback before fucking seeing it finished. I mean, like they should have been so they could have been like, no, this They probably knew it was awful. Yeah. Yeah, they're lord of the behind their official release, established fan base, loyal fans who want something that they completely took advantage of that. There's no way. They would have had early access on that, no way, Nope, or even. Imagine on beta and people are like, this is the worst game ever made. Yeah, like what the hell? There it goes. No way, they wouldn't even have a chance. Yeah, no way they do that. Yeah, so they had to just hide and be like, no, let's just release this when we think it's finished. And that didn't even work for so they literally couldn't win. Yeah they could, they could not. They hadn't show a fucking chance. No, not, piece of garbage. There was a study done. I don't know who who did it. I'd have to check the source, says using Steam's Early access of November twenty fourteen, found that only granted that was a while ago, only twenty five percent of titles submitted as early access had made it to a final release form. Wow. Really so a quarter of the games according to Games Industry Dot bid that's horrible. That was quite a while ago, though, Oh that was only that may have changed since, I mean that was the thing, right. Steam's early Access program started in twenty thirteen, so that was only a year after, so that might not be Yeah, yeah, okay. And there's a lot more nowadays, and they take a while to come out. So even if someone did do a new study or survey, right, there's gonna be x amount that they can't even they can't even jot down because there won't be out for another year two years. But like with all that we've been said, I think we can probably final thoughts here. I just don't. I don't like doing it, okay, especially not the the early release access deluxe early access, Yeah, the luxe bullshit, no fucking way, no, So Jonathan says no, But for other it depends on the game. I guess for the other style, but I don't like the idea of it, as I said, because it's like, I'm not going to go back to it. So do I pay money now and just not play it? Maybe maybe you could do that there's a game, but then you're not getting anything literally because it could not get to fruition. So I just say in general, I don't like it. Well it all. It also affects reviews and game critics right like they can't they can't give you a full review of a game that's not done yet. So it also bleeds into that the the review aspect of things like we use reviews to decide what we're going to play. So if we see these reviews of like a game that's not done, okay, so that's first impressions. Okay, so maybe I can't take that. I'll take it with a grain of salt kind of thing. I mean, just as you can with every other review. Yeah, but it's not going to say you know, because this review was it was given during early access. It doesn't say that on the review. It says maybe a date. Well, and then you would have to say, oh, that was ah, that was during early access. I think Steam. I think Steam stamps it of time of review if it's really if it's an early it'll have a little early access like tag on your review. Okay. Well some websites I was just doing some reading, and some websites like Polygon and Eurogamer have thoughts. Like Polygon says they feel better providing commentary on any product that is being sold to customers, but because they recognize that early access titles are still in progress games, they approach them a bit differently. And Eurogamer will only formally review real retail versions of the game after its release. It may give like initial impressions, but I don't you actually score it because there are things called previews. Yeah, yeah, so I don't know. It's just a dangerous it's a dangerous thing. You got to be careful protect yourself and your money and your emotions. And with the early access I think as a gamer. For me, for how I play games, I'm like sixty forty on this sixty pro forty con So I like, obviously I've bought in too early access games, Like obviously some of these were duds, but some of them were good, like Temp Temp was good, Gray Zone. I did play twenty five hours of it, Like I enjoyed it. I knew it was early access. I got frustrated, but I knew it was early access. Like will I go back whenever there's more updates, Yes, I will. There's those other games that stole my money, like Nether and I think it was called uh Infestation Zombies zero or something. Look like that. Fuck Like that one was a complete scam. I'm probably sure that they stole my credit card and used it on like whatever, but. Like I played that one. Probably it was like a Dais clone back when dai Z was really big. So these scams started coming up right, these early access ones where they'd do any kind of zombie survival game, and I into that one. The devs disappeared, the game never got updated, it got re released and renamed like three or four times in early access again, and just kept stealing people's money, like just like a right. So on one side, I say, if it's a game that I'm looking forward to and it's a decent entry price into the early access, I don't mind it, because a I'm helping developers fund the project. If it's an indiean developer, or if it's a lower income studio like a double A or like a single A studio something like. That, I don't mind. But if it's like. I'm like on the on the on the fence, and I read a few reviews of the early access and they're fucking terrible, and I'm like, okay, no, I'm not going to do this again. But like tem Tem deserved my money for that early access and my one hundred hours I put into it. It was fantastic. I have no regrets about going early access on tem Tem none whatsoever. So like I'm like a six forty here, the deluxe early Access was cheap. It was only twenty bucks or something. No, it was like thirty five bucks for early access I think I got, which is say, like the price was there access, Yeah, like the price was there, Like I will not pay sixty dollars for an early access game like that is something like there's there's a level for me. There's like a cutoff, like if you're if you're charging more than fifty percent for like the early access like a no Wicked for World Man there, then like I'm not going to buy the game for sixty dollars to watch you develop it and play it and then get sick of it when I can buy it for twenty dollars more on release and get the full game. Like I'm not going to do that. So it's it's a give and take and it's a sixty forty kind of thing. Am I scared that all games in the future are going to be early access release and no one's actually going to get a full game? Yeah, I'm scared that that's just going to be the way it is. It's like all games are going to be early access or thrown on game pass, you know. I think it will happen with Triple A, Like it's not gonna happen Triple A titles. Yeah, they don't need to do that, so they're not going to do it. But yeah, so yes, it's good, it's bad. It's good and it's bad. But you know, just what do what feels right for you. And if you if you're if you were dead set on buying this game anyway when it came out, why not right? If you were following the developer, they seem legitimate, they seem like they care. Why not right, especially for getting into don't care? But just bearinicle gamer and you're in development or you're fascinated by development, sure, by the early acts, see how it plays, see how it feels, learn about it, whatever you know. But like, if you want a fucking gaming experience, I don't think that early access is really the right way to go if you want like a good experience anyway. Yep, that's where I stand. Yeah, I wish I could say yes or no, but I just can't because I've had good experiences. So I'm on. I'm still on the fence of sixty forty sixty forty sixty for pro, forty for con all right, I say I'm leaning more on the yes. Well, we'll have to ask our viewers, yes, they think, so let us know in the comments. What do you think? Are you a pro early Access in either form of early Access, the Deluxe Edition or the Early Access Development Edition in or version? I guess we could say, let us know in the comments what you think already. And that's it for this week's episode. We want to thank everyone for tuning in, listening on or watching on YouTube. Please be sure to like and subscribe on YouTube and give us a rating review on Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to the podcast or watch the videos. You know it helps us get out there to more listeners who may enjoy the show. Also, we are now part of the super Podtwork network of podcasts. You can find, browse and check out over on superpodnetwork dot com. 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